Oh, look, it’s another Metal Gear post. Surprised? But this one is not about the game! No, it’s about how the series has just become too meta for its own good. And that’s saying something.
Apparently someone has gone and created OILIX in real-life. OILIX, of course, was the fictional MacGuffin that initiated the plotline to Metal Gear 2, only to never be mentioned again in any of its sequels; a lab-engineered microorganism designed to poop petroleum as a solution to the world’s energy shortages. And now someone’s gone and created it, nearly two decades later. Man, if you thought Kojima fanboys were insufferable in singing praises to his visionary genius before….
oh man Kojima is so awesome!
or… whatever you’re expecting me to say.
Does this mean in 20 years the war economy thing will be happening?
And here I was all afraid we’d have to stop burning fossil fuels or risk slow expulsion by a planet no longer able to support us! Now I don’t have to worry anymore!
OILIX still wasn’t as outlandish as MG2’s prediction that the end of the Cold War would mean an immediate global consensus towards NO MORE NUKES 4EVA. He was only too happy to backpedal on that when MGS1 came around.
Quick, get Ultrabox and Night Sight!
I’m pretty sure I discovered that in SMAC one game and it destroyed the world in the next year.
All right! Now instead of dying in a Mad Max scenario, we’ll all roast in global warming or be devoured by indestructible genetically engineered petrol-bugs.
This is actually *very interesting*. The problem with most alternative fuels is that (1) they are energy-inefficient, meaning they cost almost as much energy to produce as they actually produce, or (2) the fuels won’t fit into our current infrastructure – i.e., for hydrogen cars to work, everyone in America would have to buy new hydrogen cars, and we’d have to rip out gas pumps and pipelines and replace ’em with the hydrogen equivalent. However, this bug-juice overcomes both those hurdles *and* they claim it’s carbon-neutral. This really sounds too good to be true. I’m not a fan of the motoring lifestyle, but it beats the hell out of peak oil-induced starvation, civil chaos, and resource wars.
If I remember right, mg2 said oilix merely metabolized normal crude into high quality oil thats more efficient, not creating oil to begin with.
We won’t have to worry about id controls in 20 years, just robots with a penchant for stealing identities.
Is it just me, or does Shane’s comment about MGS4 changing established world-views sound like a steaming pile of (game tie-in) Johnny feces?
I guess I’m just trolling at this point, but; I guess I just don’t get this series. And probably never will.
Any comments on the gravitas of Metal Gear should be taken with a grain of salt when they come from someone who had never given thought to the ethics and realities of PMCs before playing this game.
When I read this story the other day, MG2 was also the first thing that came to mind. Funny how science fiction tends to become science fact, isn’t it?
Too bad MGS4 couldn’t overcome high gas prices in peoples list of life priorities and the PS3 remains fucked.
:(
Science is FUN!
Jeremy, I would love to see/hear a discussion between you and Shane about MGS4. I loved it when you two talked about FFVII a while ago on Retronauts, and I think a similar discussion about MGS4 would be interesting, as I would like to hear the differing opinions on the gameplay, cutscenes, story, etc. I know you want to be wash your hands of everything Metal Gear, but I think it would make for a great article (or podcast.)
…besides, he TOTALLY called you a peasant on 1UP Yours…you can’t just leave that alone…
I feel bad for Shane. Clearly he’s campaigning hard for a job at Kojima Pro. But they already have their token white guy!
That discussion would be the bee’s knees. Though, I’m still waiting to hear what else Jeremy has to say on his own about the full experience now that I’ve finished the game.
I don’t think Shane wants a job at Kojima Pro so much as he is the biggest fan of every game everywhere and will fight anyone who says otherwise.
CT: There’s a Shane vs. Parish segment in the 1UP Show. It’s surprisingly like the FFVII discussion on Retronauts; they both kind of have the same opinion but flaws in games bother Parish a lot more than they do Shane.
you guys are talking as if these oil producing creatures don’t already exist in the form of adolescents
I suspect less a matter of being a visionary than of looking at cutting edge and/or speculative research at the time. The idea of GM micro-organisms like this one was around at the time MG2 was being written. It was just much more in the realm of “this should be possible in another decade or two”. As for how ready this is for prime-time, we’ll see, though I’m hopeful. It’s projects like this that made me choose BioChem as my post-military career, and confirm my opinion that most of the best environmental solutions are not to be found from the environtalist groups, but from for-profit private enterprise looking for solutions that are both environmentally friendly and have a positive economic impact.
I think Kojima’s just a lucky guesser.
Apart from the Metal Gear connection, this is insanely cool tech, but the caveats need to be looked at carefully. It’s often stated that the current global food shortage is partly the result of farmers switching to the cultivation of crops for manufacturing “eco-friendly” biodiesel, rather than edible food. (See: article. This isn’t just limited to Mexico, it’s hitting people all over the world.)
It’s good that the company has already stated their intention to use waste matter rather than edible crops, but we don’t know what other side effects there may be. Heck, I doubt the people pushing biodiesels had considered the possibility of food shortages when they started their initiatives.